The Flag
by Lawless67
Summary: Dean stays, and neither of them asks questions, for a while at least. Part of my Three Reasons AU. Rated T for language.


**A/N**: For those few of you following my Three Reasons series, this falls about two months after Dean and Remington's meeting. Sam is, unfortunately, still in Hell. I wanted to give her some backstory, as well as give a sort of shoutout to my two brothers currently serving in the Navy. One of them is training to be a combat medic, and he is my character base for Chase. Let me know what you think…

He likes the way she calls him darlin'.

It's only when they're alone, like this, and no one can hear the unexpected sentimentality in her voice. The endearment rolls around her mouth and takes its time getting to him in that southern drawl, soft and surprisingly sweet. It's different from her usual _slugger _or _cowboy_, although those are not unaffectionate. But he knows, even with the easy, teasing tone of her voice, that she is holding him at arm's length when such names trip off the tongue.

She's not usually a woman for much softness. A hard life and too much loss have wrung it out of her, but there are sudden moments, here and there, when she lets him past the scars.

He, of all people, understands.

So when he finds a set of male dress blues, folded and pressed, in the bottom drawer of her nightstand, he doesn't ask. He leaves her secrets untouched, closes the drawer, and takes his search for socks elsewhere.

It worries at him, though. He wonders, briefly, if she was married before, if she still mourns a husband, fiancé, boyfriend. What man wouldn't? But he lets her keep the cards close to her chest, bides his time. Because he hasn't yet told her of his own demons either.

They're still so new, and he thinks both of them are unsure of how he came to be practically living in her apartment after a bare month. Half his possessions are still in the Impala, parked out back, but he has a drawer of clothes, solely his, and he ends up sleeping next to her every night.

It surprises him that he has no desire to leave. That itch, that persistent restlessness that has plagued him since a young age is alarmingly absent, but then, something equally as constant is missing now, too. And the idea of having to sit near that empty passenger seat for hours at a time scares him in a way that little else does.

So Dean stays, and neither of them asks questions, for a while at least.

He works part-time at the garage downtown—or on the dusty little strip they consider downtown—and part-time as a bus boy/bartender/cook in the same beer joint she tends bar. He hasn't seen anything worse than a slightly belligerent drunk in two months, so when he comes home to find her crying he is understandably startled.

She is on the couch, hunched around herself and sobbing fit to break his heart.

There is a folded flag in her arms.

"Rem," he says helplessly. She jerks, clutches the flag close to her chest and attempts to stop the heaving of her breath.

"'s nothing," she says. "I just—'m fine."

He sits beside her, not touching, but close enough he can feel the heat of her along his right side.

"I've known for a while," he states quietly, "that there was someone. Found his blues in your nightstand by accident."

"Oh," she breathes. They don't look at each other.

"I get it. I don't expect you to tell me about him. It's okay, that he has a part of you. I don't pretend to understand it, I don't think I've ever loved another woman like that, but—"

"No, it's not—" she tries to interrupt.

"It's okay, Rem. Really." They still face forward.

"He was my brother," she says, almost evenly.

The unexpected word hits him _there_, and he is equally aware of what a careless, insensitive idiot he is and how much it _hurts._

"Ah," he replies, because what else is there?

"He always wanted it, joined the Navy in '99, shipped out three weeks after he turned eighteen. And I was almost sixteen and so angry with him for leaving me, but I couldn't blame him. He loved it." She pauses, draws a shaky breath. "Special Ops Combat Medic, Chase Cage. They sent him over with the marines after 9/11, front lines."

He can hardly breathe, because he knows what's coming.

"They said he was a crazy bastard, too brave and half stupid with it. I know it's true. When we were kids, he used to fight. The kids were always bigger, older, and they'd have him down with his face in the dirt, scraped and bleeding all over, and still he didn't stop. He didn't give up, not ever. Right after he left, when I was so mad, he wrote me every damn day until I gave it up and answered. He was stubborn, and I loved him for it."

Dean doesn't say that she has a piece of that herself.

She clutches the flag tighter now. "Killed in action, August 2005. The building they were evacuating blew up. They told me he saved ten people before that, civilians."

A strangled sob looses, and he longs to touch but is afraid to, afraid she'll shatter on impact.

"It doesn't help," she murmurs. "Conviction. That was his thing. 'Whatever you do, Remy, do it with conviction, or there's no point in it.' Well, that was real comforting when I didn't even have a body to bury, wasn't it, Chase?"

The last is accompanied with a wild laugh, but it holds no humor, only the roughness of broken glass in the back of her throat.

Dean reaches for her, only a hand on her knee, because he knows that there are some wild things you're not supposed to touch. She lets him, surprisingly, and he feels her shift until her body touches his, ankle to hip to shoulder. She doesn't lean on him, she's too independent yet for that, but this is the closest thing to holding each other either of them will allow right now.

"It's his birthday today," she whispers. "Five years since he's been gone."

He doesn't have words for this, and it seems she doesn't either, so they both fall silent.

Hesitantly, as if she's hoping he won't notice, her hand creeps over and tangles with his. The folded flag is held tight to her heart in the other arm.

_Okay_, he thinks, _okay._

Not looking at her, he grips her hand, knuckles white.

Slowly, haltingly, he begins to tell her about Sam.


End file.
